Before you Buy: 2011-2020 F150 Boxed Steel vs. Tubular "Baja" Bumpers!

The good news about front bumpers for the 2011-2020 F150s is that there's a huge selection to choose from. The bad news about front bumpers for the 2011-2014 F150s, 2015-2017 F150s, or the 2018-2020 F150s is that there's a huge selection to choose from. We here at Stage 3 Motorsports have F150 bumpers out the wazoo, and there's even more that we'll probably add in the future. While having (arguably) too many choices is never a bad thing, navigating the myriad of options when it comes to a pretty pricey part like a front or rear bumper is enough to increase your anxiety level to the nth degree. The good news is that there's a two basic types of bumpers: boxed steel and tubular "Baja" style bumpers, and while one isn't inherently better than the other, there are good reasons to choose one or the other that will help narrow down your options and get you the F150 front bumper that's perfect for your truck's looks and application.

Boxed Steel Bumpers for 2011-2020 F150s

By far the most common type of front bumper for both the 2011-2014 F150s and the 2015-2020 F150s are boxed steel bumpers. Boxed steel bumpers are made out of steel plating that's bent and welded together to form a, well, boxy shape. Many of these bumpers also feature internal gusseting that give them awesome levels of strength. There's a lot to choose from, though some of our favorites are the Hammerhead Low Profile F150 Bumpers, Fab Fours Vengeance Series, and the Road Armor Stealth Series. Boxed steel bumpers offer up a lower price, greater structural strength (in the case of gusseted versions), and more winch mounting options that most tubular Baja-style bumpers. We've only installed one boxed steel bumper on one of our project trucks, which is the 2011-2014 F150 EcoBoost Hammerhead Low Profile Front Bumper on our 2011 F150 XL Project Truck (owned by yours truly). Hammerhead's bumpers are absolutely awesome, but horribly underrated by the F150 market at large. Thick steel, heavy gusseting, built-in light mounts, and utterly massive clevis mounts make this one of the heaviest-duty bumpers we've put on ANY of our trucks. My only real criticism of Hammerhead is that they don't have a winch mount low-profile bumper for the 2015-2020 F150s, likely due to intercooler clearance issues. However, with high-mount intercooler kits available, this seems to be a missed opportunity.

Granted, not everything is sunshine and daisies with boxed steel bumpers, and there are a few drawbacks. You know that "huge strength" thing we talked about earlier? That comes at a cost of weight, and boxed bumpers (especially those like Hammerhead and Road Armor) weight quite a bit more than tubular bumpers, especially if you add a winch. That extra weight can sag the front end of your truck a bit and makes the bumpers pretty difficult to install, even if you bribe one of your buddies to help with beer. Boxed steel bumpers also tend to be pretty large and can add a significant amount of length to your truck, which can be a pretty serious issue if you're already borderline fitting into your garage. Lastly, most boxed bumpers won't provide the tire clearance or the approach angle increases that tubular Baja-style bumpers tend to provide. While boxed steel bumpers are pretty excellent in regards to their front-end protection and general utility, they aren't the most ideal choice of a purpose-built trail and off-road truck.

Tubular Steel Baja-Style F150 Bumpers

Baja-Style Tubular bumpers once dominated the F150 scene, especially in the 2009-2014 generation of trucks that had more rounded features. Whether it was shifting aesthetics or the fact that CNC mandrel benders aren't exactly the least expensive industrial manufacturing component out there, the popularity of tubular bumpers has tapered off over the years. Whatever, the rationale, there's still a lot of good things about tubular bumpers like the ADD Venoms, ADD Stealths, and ADD Lites that may make them a great choice for your truck. As their name implies, these bumpers are primarily made out or a tubular steel frame with plates and mounts welded on. While these bumpers do offer more durability than stock, they're still not quite as strong as most boxed steel bumpers. However, that lack of strength and gusseting does mean that tubular bumpers tend to be lighter than your average boxed steel bumper. The real benefit of tubular bumpers is that they offer up way more clearance for big tires and a huge improvement in approach angle which makes them perfect for off-road builds. We've had tubular bumpers on more than a few of our F150 builds, including an ADD Stealth on our 2012 F150 EcoBoost Project and an ADD Stealth R on our 2015 F150 Desert Runner Project. Tubular bumpers also have a much easier time fitting big light bars than most boxed steel bumpers, but that isn't always the case. In any case, ADD is probably the gold standard of F150 tubular steel bumpers, and that doesn't look like it's changing any time soon.

As awesome as tubular steel bumpers are, like anything, they do have some take to go along with all that they give. Like we talked about before, while a tubular bumper is stronger than stock, they still aren't as strong as boxed steel bumpers, especially boxed bumpers with internal gusseting. Don't get me wrong. Your average tubular bumper will handle a hard hit better than the stock bumper, but if you're going to be abusing your truck at a job site or down on the farm, you may want to consider a boxed steel bumper. One of the more practical downsides of tubular steel bumpers is that they tend to have less options for mounting winches. Since tubular bumpers hug closer to the body and frame than boxed steel bumpers, there's just less clearance to fit big winches like the Warn Zeon series and you may end up needing to do some frame trimming or other modifications to get larger winches to fit successfully.

Boxed Sort Of Baja Bumpers for F150s?

There is a small subset of bumpers that try to take the best of both worlds and put them into one design. These bumpers generally feature boxed steel constructions, but have a Baja-style design that tucks close to the body so that you get the strength of a boxed steel bumper with the tire clearance and approach angle improvements of a tubular steel bumper all in one place. Bumpers of this pseudo-type include the ADD Stealth Fighter and ADD Bomber Series bumpers, among a couple of others. While we haven't had the opportunity to try these bumpers ourselves yet, but on paper, they're very interesting takes on bumper design. We're aiming to install ADD's Bomber front bumper on our 2020 F150 Giveaway truck soon, so stay tuned for an install and full review here in the future.

F150 Bumpers:

• F150 Hammerhead Low Profile Bumpers
• F150 Fab Fours Vengeance Bumpers
• F150 Road Armor Stealth Bumpers
• F150 ADD Venom Bumpers
• F150 ADD Stealth Bumpers
• F150 ADD Lite Bumpers
• F150 ADD Stealth R Bumpers